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Petition on affordable housing open to EU citizens

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Citizens of European Union member states can now sign on to a petition calling to expand affordable housing in Europe. "We must not leave Europe to the financial markets and economic liberals," said Reiner Wild of the German Tenants Association in Berlin, which together with the German Trade Union Federation (DGB) supports the petition's initiators.The petition, also called a citizens' initiative, calls for more EU funding for non-profit developers, more public investment in housing, and other measures to improve access to housing.The initiative has until 20 March 2020 to collect at least one million signatures from at least seven EU member states. At least 72,000 signatures must come from Germany alone. If the initiative is successful, the EU Commission and the European Parliament must deal with the demands. One possibility would be for the Commission to propose legislation. If it rejects a petition, it must explain its reason."The human right to housing is being made into a subject of speculation to an unbelievable extent across all of Europe," said the spokeswoman for the citizens' initiative, Karin Zauner-Lohmeyer. As a result, she said, people across the continent were overburdened by housing costs, displaced from cities and, in the worst case, were rendered homeless. "One can say that Europe is in a deep housing crisis," Zauner-Lohmeyer said.

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